Coast Guard responds to oil spill near New Orleans

Apr 12th, 2018 · Comments Off on Coast Guard responds to oil spill near New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS – The Coast Guard and local agencies are responding to an oil spill near mile marker 100 on the lower Mississippi River near New Orleans, Thursday.

Coast Guard Sector New Orleans watchstanders received a report at 10:30 a.m. of the Singapore-flagged vessel, Pac Antares, hit a pier on Thursday morning causing an estimated 4,200 gallons of oil fuel to discharge. The vessel is currently moored at Nashville Avenue Wharf and the leak has reportedly been plugged.

Response personnel are conducting an assessment of the impacted area and have established an Incident Command Post to coordinate response efforts.

OMI Environmental Solutions continue to deploy containment boom, sorbent boom and pads around the spill to contain and collect oil. They have deployed one skimmer at the site to skim the oil off the surface of the river and have four more are en route.

The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality are maintaining stations in the vicinity of Riverwalk mall.

“First responders continue to work to minimize the environmental impacts and protect the public so the river can be opened to commercial traffic as soon as possible,” said Capt. Wayne Arguin, commander, Sector New Orleans.

The Mississippi River is closed to vessel movement from mile marker 91 to mile marker 101.

Involved in the response are:

Coast Guard Sector New Orleans

Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans

National Response Corperation

Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office

Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality

OMI Environmental Standards

No injuries were reported and the cause of the incident is under investigation.